The aspect ratio is the shape of the picture: its width divided by its height. It is the first decision on any storyboard, because it sets the shape of every frame you draw. Compose a shot for a wide cinema screen and it will not survive being cropped to a phone, and the other way round. Board in the ratio you will deliver.
Common aspect ratios
- 16:9 (1.78:1) — the standard for HD and 4K video, YouTube, streaming, and most corporate and explainer work. If you are unsure, this is the default. Try the 16:9 widescreen storyboard template.
- 1.85:1 — "flat" theatrical widescreen, slightly wider than 16:9. Common for dramas and comedies.
- 2.39:1 — anamorphic "scope", often called 2.35 or 2.40. Very wide, great for landscapes and for placing characters far apart in one frame. See the 2.39:1 CinemaScope template.
- 4:3 (1.33:1) — classic television, close to the Academy ratio (1.37:1) of older films. Used today for a deliberately retro or intimate feel.
- 1:1 — square, for some social feeds and ads.
- 4:5 — portrait for the Instagram feed (1080 × 1350), which takes up more of the screen than a square post.
- 9:16 — full-screen vertical video: Instagram Reels, TikTok, YouTube Shorts, and Stories. Use the 9:16 vertical video template.
Letterboxing and pillarboxing
When a picture is wider than the screen it plays on, it is letterboxed: black bars fill the top and bottom. A 2.39:1 film shown on a 16:9 TV is the classic example. When a picture is narrower than the screen, it is pillarboxed, with bars on the left and right, like a 4:3 clip in a 16:9 timeline.
You can board this two ways. Either draw in frames that are already 2.39:1, or draw in 16:9 frames with letterbox bars on them — useful when the final delivery is a 16:9 file with a scope image inside it, because the boards then match exactly what the audience will see. In Striply's storyboard maker, the Matte setting adds 2.39:1 or 1.85:1 letterbox bars, or 4:3 pillarbox bars, to every frame.
Planning one shoot for several platforms
Many productions now shoot once and deliver both a 16:9 version and a 9:16 vertical cut. A vertical crop of a 16:9 frame keeps only about the middle third of the picture, so anything outside that band — a second character, a product on a table, on-screen text — disappears. Cinematographers call planning for this protecting for a ratio.
A crop guide on your boards makes the problem visible early. Draw your frames at 16:9 and add a 9:16 crop guide: the area that survives the crop stays clear and the rest is shaded. If a shot only works in the shaded area, you will know to stage it differently or plan a separate vertical setup. Striply's Matte menu has crop guides for 9:16, 4:5, 1:1, and 16:9.
Safe areas
Not every pixel of a frame is guaranteed to be seen or read comfortably. Action safe and title safe areas are inset rectangles that keep important action and text away from the edges. Current HD broadcast guidance (SMPTE ST 2046-1) puts action safe at 93% of the frame and title safe at 90%; older standard-definition practice used 90% and 80%. Even for online video it is worth keeping titles inside title safe, because players and platforms overlay captions, progress bars, and buttons near the edges.
Turn on Safe areas in Striply's storyboard toolbar to draw both rectangles in every frame. They print with the boards, so the whole team can see them. For an overview of what goes into each frame, read what a storyboard is and how to make one.